Samsung to invest $4B to upgrade Austin chip fab

SAN FRANCISCO—A subsidiary of South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. plans to invest $4 billion to beef up the company's logic semiconductor fab in Austin, Texas, the company said Tuesday (Aug. 21).

Samsung completed construction of phase two of the Austin fab—where Samsung builds A4 and A5 processors for Apple Inc. as well as other logic chips—last year. The upgrade plans announced Tuesday will bring Samsung's total fab investment in Texas to $13 billion, Samsung said.

Samsung said the remodeled fab line will mainly produce mobile SoCs on 300-mm wafers at the 28-nm process node.

Samsung said it plans to start work on the upgrade later this month. Mass production of the retroffited facility is expected to commence in the second half of next year, Samsung said.

"The added ability in production will allow our customers to better respond to market needs," said Woosung Han, president of Samsung Austin Semiconductor, in a statement.

Samsung said the $4 billion investment would mark the largest ever foreign investment in the state of Texas.

We have heard this investment is mainly for 3D IC manufacture. According to the history of Austin Fab, maybe imply next gen processor for Apple (A7?!) would be 3D structure and Samsung may gain more market share across foundry business.

Great news! I know that Hynix only had a US fab to circumvent punitive duties, and as soon as the duties expired they closed the fab. Samsung seems to be taking their US operations more seriously, which is great. Hopefully Samsung will start to shift some development to the US as well.